


Fix Me Up

by sistercacao



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, POV Duo Maxwell, Post-Canon, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-09
Updated: 2007-09-09
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: Duo comes home after a mission gone sideways, and discovers why Heero always wants to patch him up when he gets hurt.





	Fix Me Up

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first (the first?) 2x1 lemons I ever wrote. A good old classic 'hurt/comfort' fic. Also has a sequel from Heero's POV, [Help Me There.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13366563)

“Damn, that hurts,” I hissed, moving my injured arm out of the shower’s spray. I could’ve sworn it hadn’t looked this bad last night when I came home. Then again, I was so tired after the mission that I barely even remembered _coming_ home. Shit. This wasn’t just the little nothing scratch that I thought it was. There was a nice big chunk missing out of my arm, courtesy of some asshole with a knife who was a little too quick for me– a little something to remember this mission by. And it hurt like an effing bitch now that all the adrenaline and exhaustion had been slept off.

It was also kind of bleeding a lot, but as long as the water in the shower was pink and not red I wasn’t too worried. I’ve seen enough of my insides over the years that a little blood is rarely something to freak out over. I’m a tough little bastard, I tell you.

Very gingerly, trying not to piss my throbbing arm off any more, I unbraided my hair and lathered it up with a whole shitload of shampoo– I think I just decided “fuck it” halfway and dumped half the bottle into my hand. There was some serious gunk in there, and it wasn’t just blood and sweat. I swear I found pieces of asphalt, maybe some shrapnel; My braid was under serious fire yesterday.

Despite my arm and the disgusting state of my hair, it felt fucking great to just be taking a shower. Screw that, it felt great just to be _naked_. It seemed like I hadn’t taken my Preventer’s uniform off in at least two days. Could’ve been more, but no sleep blurred the memories of the last few days into one hazy mess.

Half standing, half leaning in exhausted bliss against the wall, I contemplated what I would do with my first day off in a while. Pancakes would definitely come first, after I got out of the shower. Definitely before getting dressed. Fuck it, maybe I wouldn’t get dressed at all today, just lounge out naked on the couch. Heero would deal with it. Hell, maybe he’d like it.

Ha. Right. That was serious wishful thinking and I knew it. But I had to hand it to him, he’s never complained about my preference for going au naturel in the apartment at every available opportunity, though I’m sure it probably bugs the hell out of him.

So yeah. Definitely no clothes. Maybe a pair of boxers, _maybe_. Pancakes were a definite yes. Heero would forgive my nudity for some pancakes. But first: wash my hair, then bandange my goddamn arm. If Heero saw my arm before I wrapped it up, he’d blow a gasket and probably have me bedridden for the rest of the day.

I don’t get why Heero does this. He’s always gone nuts over injuries yours truly sustains in combat. Even back before we were roommates, arguably even back before we could be called friends. During the war, he always insisted on treating my wounds for me. Okay, insisted may be too strong a word; back then, Heero didn’t talk to me enough to insist _anything_. More like, I’d come back to base, be it a boarding school room or Peacemillion, with maybe a scratch or two or a bruised rib and Heero would be there with a med kit and a glare that said, “you can let me do this, or you can die.” And he’d bandange me up without a word. Heero’s always been weird like that. When he rescued me from Oz that one time and took me to a hospital, I woke up in bed to find Heero treating my wounds for me, just as stoic and infuriatingly deadpan as ever. I’d hate to find out what he did to the nurses to get the privilege of sewing me up himself.

I can’t figure out why he never lets me bandange myself up, when he’s always going around stitching _his_ own wounds and setting _his_ own broken bones (god, just remembering that gives me the willies). Maybe he can’t stand the way I do it or something.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s his way of showing he worries about me. That’s what I like to think... but who knows? I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t. It’s not like he lets me break out the old med kit when he’s got a boo-boo to fix up. That’s Heero for you: Mr. Double Standard.

By the time I finished washing the shampoo gunk out of my hair, I was sitting cross-legged on the shower floor, feeling a little wiped just from all the exertion of lathering and rinsing. The arm with the pieces missing out of it was completely numb because I’d been using it to wash my hair. That wasn’t exactly a good sign but it wasn’t really the end of the world. I, did, however, upgrade my after-shower breakfast to ‘pancakes and a six-pack.’

After a long time of just sitting under that gloriously hot spray of water, I finally willed myself to get up and turn the shower off. Somewhere between drying off and wrapping my hair up in a towel, I decided that I was too lazy and too fucking beat up to brush my hair. I didn’t even care that I was going to look like a wet Irish Setter by the end of the day. My arm was all throbbing pain and pins and needles, and I was just not feeling up to it. Instead, I ran my fingers through it a couple of times and let it be. Maybe Heero would braid it for me if I asked him.

Wait, no. I realized instantly that was a terrible idea. Heero would know something was up if I was too fucked up to braid my own damn _hair_. My hair is the last fucking thing I’d let anyone besides me touch. I’ve been living with Heero for nearly four years and I was _just_ now getting used to letting him tug on it to get my attention. Anyone else, I’d probably clock in the face. There are only two times I’m perfectly okay with getting my hair touched, and that’s if we’re fucking or I’m fucking _dead_ and then I could give less of a shit.

Jeez, sorry about the rant, but it’s a touchy subject. It’s almost kind of stupid, to be so caught up about something as dumb as hair. But whatever, we’ve all got our sacred objects. Heero’s is his laptop, mine is my hair. Tough shit.

So forget asking him to braid my hair. It would have to go knotty and tangled and I’d worry about it after I had seven or eight beers in me. First things first: bandage this goddamn arm.

I’ll bet you a hundred creds no one has a medicine cabinet as fucked up as Heero’s and mine. Sure, it’s got dental floss and neosporin and all that boring shit in there, but does your medicine cabinet come stocked with surgical thread and morphine? I thought not.

Now, I am not a one-man army like the good Mr. Yuy, so I can’t pull off sewing up my good arm with my bad hand. Gauze and disinfectant would have to do. If I was still bleeding by tonight, I’d worry about stitches. I poured about a half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide onto my arm and then wrapped it up real nice and tight and checked it out in the mirror. Well, it wasn’t bleeding through, so that was a good sign. I’d throw on a t-shirt and a pair of boxers and I’d be good to go. Heero wouldn’t be able to tell.

After finding the biggest t-shirt I owned (it was for some precolony band called “Anal Cunt” that I saw in a thrift store a few years back on L2. What can I say? With a name like that, I couldn’t resist), I ended up borrowing a pair of Heero’s boxers-- cute ones with little chicks on them that I bought him last Christmas– and left the bedroom to make myself some serious pancakes.

Pancakes turned out to be a bit of a hassle, after all. I had to search about fifteen minutes just to find the damn pancake mix, and by the time I had pulled out the butter and the milk and the pan I was only doing it because I was too stubborn to give up and just eat a candy bar. While I mixed and poured and flipped, my mind wandered back to the mission that had gone so fabulously haywire. With a few good hours of sleep in me, memories of the last day or so began to filter through my consciousness, though they seemed hazy and far away, like they’d happened a long time ago.

_“Hello there, we’re Agents Maxwell and Matthews of the Preventers, we have an appointment with Mr. Gunderson and Mr. Clinger.”_

_“I see.”_ That slight hesitation in the secretary’s voice had gone right over my head at the time. After all, we were used to receiving a less-than-warm reception when we arrived to make inspections. But now that I was looking back on things that cautiousness seemed like a big red alarm bell, one that I should’ve caught.

_“Agents, please take a seat. I have to say that your calling to see us came as a bit of a surprise. Gold Leaf is a paper company, after all. We’re not entirely sure what interest the Preventers have in our financial dealings.”_

_“Mr. Clinger, please understand that these inspections are entirely routine, as per Charter 1369. Banks are required by law to request inspections of businesses if certain markers in their financial practices with that bank are noticed. An inspection by no means implies suspicion of illegal activity.”_

All that shit that Matthews had said was straight out of the Preventers Handbook, practically word for word. I should know; they drilled that stuff into your head during training, and Matthews was only about a week out of orientation when he got placed on this oh-so-exciting mission with yours truly.

No, I wasn’t exactly ecstatic to go on a financial inspection mission, where the most action you tended to see was the pissed off little curl of some rich old guy’s lip as he handed his company records over to you to photocopy. But hey, rookies didn’t go on missions without senior agents accompanying them, and I was both a senior agent and tragically bereft of anything better on my schedule. Also, according to Noin, I “treated inexperienced agents with a great deal less hostility” than some of my coworkers.

So, just in case you were wondering why I tend to get stuck with all the babysitting jobs when Agents Chang and Yuy were getting assigned to hacking and infiltration missions, it’s all thanks to my charming personality. Being this stellar of an individual is a double-edged sword, you know.

Matthews wasn’t a bad guy or anything, and even though the shit he had spouted to those two suits was straight out of the training manual, it was pretty effective stuff. It said a lot without actually saying anything. For example, no, the fact that a business might be targeted for inspection didn’t necessarily imply that they were doing something illegal, but the markers that made banks give us the phone call almost always did. Take, for example, the fact that Gold Leaf Paper Company was barely two years old and already had what seemed to be a billion creds in capitol; That is, if you took the time to trace all the paths their money went through after being “officially” deposited in the bank they kept on record.

Fortunately, we _had_ taken the time, as had the bank that alerted us to the unusually high number, and especially its contrast with the amount the company had reported to their stockholders last quarter.

But you know, we’d run into creative discrepancies in companies’ books before, and it didn’t always mean there was something any more sinister afoot than plain old fraud. And god, there sure was a lot of that to go around. Nothing like taking the agonizing time to pour over bank records and company reports, checking and double-checking, to come to the grand discovery that one of the CEOs just wanted to buy a big yacht for his girlfriend and didn’t want to pay for it.

But that’s part of the reason these inspection missions were so magical. Illegal business practices just really get my motor running. I could even tell back in that office that Matthews wasn’t any more thrilled to be there than I was, beyond maybe the fact that this was the first time he got to really flash a badge in someone’s face and call himself an agent.

So there we were, bored as hell, waiting for these two grumps to stop sniffling and hand over the books already, so we could get on to the even more boring phase of cross-checking their accounting files. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary as Clinger and Gunderson both left to get the books. That is, until I spotted all the big fat binders piled in the office where they had so conveniently left us unattended.

Now, it wasn’t _really_ kosher for us to rifle through their things, as the Charter gives us only reasonable cause to confiscate their financial records, but no one would really mind if I just browsed, would they? So I strolled over and grabbed a fat notebook off the desk, rifling through it absentmindedly, and all at once my throat caught and I realized that something really bad was about to happen and all the means to stop it had slipped unknowingly through our fingers.

Now, don’t ask me why Clinger and Gunderson would just leave that stuff lying around their office, but my hunch is they expected that in the event it would get found, they weren’t planning to stick around very long anyway. You see, I didn’t really need to scrutinize the blueprints I had casually flipped to in order to recognize what they were; after all, I poured over countless identical documents during the war, I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can recognize explosive specs in my sleep.

Names of materials flashed out at me like ticking numbers on a bomb, each one of which came with a jail sentence of at least ten years for the unlucky scum who was discovered producing this shit illegally. I noted Semtex, the explosive of choice for terrorists everwhere, and a personal favorite of mine from way back in the day. The list even included Ryclon, the plasma-like material that had been one of Oz’s many little experiments during the war. The blueprint read like a laundry list for blowing up a city.

Hm, looks like the only paper Gold Leaf was producing were the ones detailing the weapons-grade materials production. I remembered the confused look Matthews had given me when he noticed my mood had gone sour real fast.

_“What’s wrong, Agent Maxwell?”_

_“Matthews, check the door.”_

_“.... It’s locked! What the hell?”_

Yeah, that was the exact moment that I realized I probably should have been careful what I wished for. We were definitely in for something a lot more exciting than inspection.

I sighed, returning my mind to the present and the pancakes that were getting kind of burned during my little trip down memory lane. I scraped them out of the pan and onto a plate, foregoing setting the table; I wasn’t planning on using it anyway. Fuck the kitchen table, this was a couch day.

I fished around in the refridgerator, grabbing as many beers as I could fit in one hand, and brought the pancakes over to the couch. I flopped onto it gratefully, still feeling like an idiot as I ran through the beginning of the mission several more times in my head, kicking myself for not realizing what had been going on until it was too late.

I was decidedly annoyed as I popped my first beer open. If only I hadn’t had my head so far up my ass, whining to myself about being stuck with a rookie on a rookie mission, I probably would have paid more attention to my surroundings, to the stacks of records already filling the office. I probably would have interrogated the managers personally instead of letting Matthews do it for me. I probably would have found it odd that something as simple as fetching a record book required two people. Hell, I might have even heard the near-silent click of the locks in the doors, not that it would have done me much good at that point anyway.

By the time we heard the far-off whine of alarms ringing throughout the facility, Matthews had deduced we’d been had. He had been really pissed off, nearly as mad as I was. I’m used to dealing with Heero on missions, where you have to analyze the littlest twitch of an eyebrow to determine whether he’s angry or ecstatic, so Matthews’ emotions were pretty easy to pick up on by comparison. For example, he was angry when he realized we were locked in. He was excited and a little surprised when I picked the lock to the door Clinger and Gunderson had gone through, using the picks I _still_ stashed in my braid before going on active duty.

Naturally, a big hoity-toity secret illegal exposives plant like Gold Leaf wouldn’t settle for just any old locks, they had to use high-tech key code ones, which I overrode with the handy little electronic lockpick that Heero had bought me as a birthday present. He knew just what I wanted. Isn’t that sweet?

Anyway, Matthews was a wet-behind-the-ears recruit, fresh out of training, so he didn’t have a lot of experience with the kind of situations I’ve gotten myself into before. It wasn’t surprising, therefore, to see that excitement quickly turn to naked fear when the room we had been inhabiting moments before exploded behind us as we escaped down a corridor. Me? Nah, I wasn’t fazed. Been there, done that.

This was yet another point in my recollection where I cursed myself and took a long swig of my rapidly-emptying bottle. I should’ve grabbed more stuff, not just the one binder with the explosive specs in it. I should have. I should’ve yelled at Matthews to grab some, rather than just assuming he would. You can’t assume a rookie is going to do the same thing that, say, Heero Yuy would do in a tense situation. When I heard the telltale whine, muffled through the wall, of a detonation sequence being initiated, picking the lock became my main objective. It was only minutes later, racing down the hall, that I realized all that information had just been lost in the blast.

I should’ve seen it coming, it’s the oldest trick in the book– two birds with one stone, or in this case, two Preventers agents and all the incriminating evidence with one, er, detonation. Man, I should’ve seen it coming.

I popped open another bottle as I recounted our daring escape from that giant facility. Not that we knew it was an escape, per se, until we were already deep underground, dropping enemy combatants like flies (yeah, even on a nothing mission like this we still got guns– stun guns, isn’t that nifty?) as we searched for Clinger and Gunderson. After all, without them, we might as well show up to headquarters and take a big dump on Une’s desk. I had this sinking feeling that the binder in my hands didn’t have a whole lot more information beyond just the proof that these guys had been making explosives under our noses for a couple of years– no contacts, no financial records, none of that good, incriminating shit that might get the _next_ explosives plant shut down too. If we wanted to get anything accomplished we really had to get the men themselves and bring them in for interrogation.

Excuse me, “questioning”. We don’t really get to call that shit “interrogation” anymore; it has some less-than-peachy connotations, courtesy of Oz and yeah, maybe some of our behavior too. So, contrary to what I was brought up in my youth to believe was routine “questioning” procedures (it sure was when _I_ was questioned, at least), I wasn’t going to get to take a dance on these guys’ faces while I politely asked them for a list of contacts. What a shame.

So, there we were. Matthews wasn’t feeling nearly as excited to be seeing some real action as he should have been, and I was just pissed because I was thinking that this wasn’t no Class B mission (don’t be fooled by the training manual, the B stands for Boring), where was our backup, our firepower? All we had were these goddamn stunguns and they were going to give me hell about using all that ammo anyway.

I think I was somewhere halfway through that rant when I realized that I smelled smoke. Well, no shit, you think they were just going to hang around and wait for Preventers to figure out they’d knocked off a couple of their guys? They were going to torch the place now and get the hell out. And no fucking way that the next time their little operation appeared they’d be going by the names Clinger and Gunderson.

So we did what we had to do. We got the fuck out and just hoped we could catch them on the way. I think I used about thirty grand worth of stungun ammo on the way out, and it _still_ wasn’t enough to cover the two of us. I guess I made the mistake of thinking Matthews would handle the situation a little bit less like a rookie. In any case, a couple of especially nice guys got the jump on us while I was expecting Matthews to cover my back, and one of these gentlemen decided that he would introduce himself by sticking a knife right into my left arm. Pleased to meet you too, buddy boy.

I realized belatedly, after I snapped the guy’s neck, that there was a big-ass knife just jutting out of my arm and a huge, jagged wound running a good four inches down my bicep. I didn’t really bother with it then, I just pulled the fucker out. Thank god I was running on about eight gallons of adrenaline at that point, because I didn’t even feel it. Yeah, pulling knives right out of my body and not even letting it slow me down– have I taken a page right out of Yuy’s book or what? Matthews’s eyes bugged out a little– must have thought I was Superman or something– but we just kept running.

Well, I’m going to go ahead and spoil the ending for you: we made it out okay. Come on, I’ve been in worse situations than that with _no_ weapons– one little burning explosives factory just doesn’t get my gears turning anymore. Even better, we made it out and caught sight of a black Mercedes ripping out of the driveway. Three guesses who that was?

Naturally, our car had been torched for-our-convenience, so I hotwired one and chased after them. Those fuckers didn’t get very far when Duo Maxwell was the one on their asses. At that point, we had already been stuck in that fucking facility for hours, god only knew exactly how long. I was in no mood for a long car chase, so I just kissed another five grand of stungun ammo goodbye and blew out their tires, then rammed their out-of-control car off the road. Hey, didn’t want them to hit someone, did I?

I finished my second bottle, my pancakes already long gone. I noticed my bandages were getting a little pink but I had made an oath to myself to get smashed before I tried to sew myself up, and that was an oath I intended to keep. Third beer and I started to wonder just how sternly I was going to get reprimanded for knocking Clinger out with one punch when I finally pulled him out of the car. Breaking somebody’s jaw is considered unnecessary force, you see. Well, Gunderson certainly fared better, so at least one of them would be talking soon.

It was at that point that Matthews was _finally_ radioing in for someone to pick us up and get us a police vehicle, giving them the rundown of the hilariously warped turn inspection had taken. Even though I had Clinger and Gunderson in custody and a binder that would make The Anarchist’s Cookbook feel inadequate, I think the very last thing I wanted to do was go to HQ and talk to anyone there. All I wanted was to take a nap for about a hundred years. I was just bushed. So you can excuse me for not telling Matthews where I was going. I mean, hell, I was pretty out of it, maybe I thought I had told him. I took the car we’d hotwired and told him to “look after those guys”– meaning our two little passed-out friends we had shackled together to a tree– and just took off for my apartment.

I drove the whole two hours without stopping, or checking on my arm, or calling in to HQ. Nothing. I just drove and passed out on my bed and, well, you know the rest. Now here I was, tipsy and feeling a little stupid for conducting myself so poorly. Noin was going to chew my ass out for leaving Matthews there with two suspects while I took a scenic drive. And costing them about a hundred grand. And breaking our buddy-boy’s jaw. Yeah, my next visit to headquarters was going to be a real jazz, so I was just not going to think about it at all today. Today was a “me” day.

At least it was until I finished my third beer, then the whole idea of having a day to myself just went to hell. Who should come busting through the door, nearly scaring me into dribbling shitty beer onto myself, but my best friend, sometimes partner, and roommate, Heero Yuy? Guess I forgot he lived here too.

Even in my tipsy state I could tell he was mad. No, wait, mad is one thing. I saw something burning in his eyes that I couldn’t remember seeing there for a long, long time. Folks, Heero Yuy was _pissed off_.

He was glaring at me with this seething anger and I have to say, I was less than happy to see him. Usually when Heero comes home, I’m two heartbeats away from puppy-dog-wagging-my-tail ecstatic, just because it’s Heero and, you know, seeing him kind of makes my day a little brighter (yeah, it’s that mushy– Duo Maxwell is capable of all that sappy shit too). But I don’t think I’d seen him this angry since maybe around when he still thought blowing himself up in Gundams was a swell pastime. And hell if it didn’t look like I was the lucky winner of Heero’s who-am-I-mad-at contest.

Heero was wearing his Preventers ensemble: slacks, button-down shirt, tie, jacket, the whole nine yards, and he kind of looked disheveled, like he hadn’t taken it off in a while. He saw me on the couch, ratty old t-shirt and _his_ boxers (way to go, Maxwell, real genius move there), and just stormed over and held out his hand, giving me this look like if I didn’t correctly guess what he wanted I was going to have several less appendages.

Unfortunately, I also had several beers in me and for the life of me I had no idea what he was asking for.

“Sorry, buddy, I already ate all the pancakes,” I said in all seriousness.

Heero just stared at me, his expression appropriate for a serial killer mugshot. Then he turned and flew out of the room. I could hear him rummaging around in the bathroom for a couple of seconds and just when I was getting up the nerve to ask him just what the fuck had I done this time he was back and holding our first-aid kid in his hands.

Aw, shit. You see what I mean, folks? Heero’s favorite goddamn thing in the whole world is sewing me up. This time though, he was looking at me like I shit in his cereal this morning, so we could safely assume I’d be getting the old checkup sans anesthetic. Wonderful.

And just how did he know I got hurt anyway? I had the t-shirt on so he couldn’t tell. He must have a sixth sense for this shit– I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to sneak it by him. Well, fuck, in that case I should have just gone naked.

Heero plopped down on the floor in front of me, cross-legged. “Show me your arm,” he said in that dead voice of his. I couldn’t tell if he was just being monotone for my benefit or if it was because he was so mad that getting the words out was a struggle.

In any case, I didn’t say a thing, I just stuck out my arm like a good boy. Heero began to unwrap the bandage, not caring to look at me as he turned my arm this way and that, inspecting the wound. Piece of shit was _still_ bleeding, I was not happy to notice. Yuy was definitely going to want to stitch it. He probably thought I was completely incompetent for not having done it already. Sorry, buddy, we can’t all grow up to be field surgeons.

Heero usually gets into a pretty good mood when he does this stuff, but he just looked pissed as he took the needle and surgical thread out of the first-aid box, saying nothing. I’ve never been a big fan of awkward silences, as you may already know, and I still had no idea what was wrong.

“Heero?” I tried, my voice coming out a little bit less assured than I intended. “What’s up, man?”

Heero didn’t answer me. Big surprise, I know. But what really floored me was when he pulled out the jar of anesthetic solution and rubbed my arm down with it. Now, let’s just say that Heero thinks a good time for anesthetic is if he just lost a couple of legs. The man just does not think the stuff is necessary most of the time; it’s like relish on a hot dog to him. He’s stitched me up about a million times without it and never, _never_ uses it unless I ask for it first.

So I was understandably blown away when he brought it out and thoroughly numbed my arm up before delicately suturing the wound with perfect, straight little stitches.

Okay, scratch mad at me. He couldn’t be angry if he was taking such pains to be gentle. So what was with the scowl, those burning eyes, his complete failure to make eye contact? He wasn’t even responding to me. Okay, what else is new, but seriously, this just did not compute.

Halfway through the stitches, Heero decided to say something.

“What happened to your arm?”

He said it in the same voice an answering machine would use to say, “you have three new messages”, but we should all know by now that Heero’s robot impression doesn’’t faze me.

“Well, you know, someone decided to get acquainted with my insides,” I said brightly. Heero just frowned. I started to feel a little uncomfortable again.

“Hey, it’s not so bad! You should see the other guy! You know, whatever happened to a friendly handshake when you wanted to get to know–”

I’m sure you’re wondering what in the world could possibly make me stop talking when I got started on a really good ramble. Well, I’ll tell you, not a whole lot. But Heero has this ability to just render me speechless with the littlest things sometimes. You just never know what to expect with this guy. Here I was, just going on and on like I love to do, and Heero was listening or maybe just tuning me out while he wrapped my arm again, and all of a sudden I feel this weird little shake around my bicep.

At first, you know, I thought it was me, like my arm was twitching from being held straight out for too long or something. But, nah, I couldn’t feel a thing, I was tipsy and numbed up and feeling pretty good all around. I’ve never been one for the shakes, anyway. No, what made me just shut right up is that I realized that Heero’s hand, the one that was holding my arm, was trembling. Heero was sitting there, just taut as a wire, and his 100%-solid-as-a-rock grip was trembling ever so slightly.

Well, holy shit. Chalk this one up for the “I’ve Never Seen Heero Do This in All the Years I’ve Known Him” category. I’ve seen Heero angry, sad, happy, insane, and about a million other things and I’ve never known his hands to tremble. Please, the guy could shoot a fly off someone’s forehead at 300 meters. Heero is _steady_. This was a sign of serious instability, and for the life of me I had no idea what was going on. I felt like I was boring a hole into the back of his head with my stare and he still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Uh...” I’m not usually this eloquent, I swear. “B-buddy? You okay?”

Heero didn’t say anything for a while. When he did, it was very quiet, but the robot voice was gone. “We realized once you and Matthews hadn’t returned from the mission by the ETA that something had gone wrong, but we received no contact from either of you for hours,” he mumbled, still staring at my arm rather than at my face. “Matthews returned to HQ and told us that you had driven off with a serious wound to your left arm. He didn’t know where you’d gone. No one knew where you were, and you didn’t report back to HQ...” He just kind of trailed off, but he was still trembling and I was all but speechless.

When he spoke again, his voice was treacherously quiet.

“I didn’t know what happened to you.”

I think if I hadn’t been completely floored by the words coming out of Heero’s mouth, I would’ve just confessed everything and told him that I’d been waiting four years to hear that kind of emotion in his voice. I mean, I wanted to just tell him I loved him, that I was just crazy about him, that it was this kind of stuff that he just pulled out of nowhere that made sure I was never going to get over this wild crush I had on the guy.

But I couldn’t say anything, and Heero was still looking like his glare could burn a hole in the carpet if he kept it up. Maybe he was mad at himself for saying so much, I don’t know.

We just kind of sat there, Heero’s shaky hand still gripping my arm, for a few minutes in total silence. My mind, though, was going a million miles an hour and nowhere all at once. I was just running over and over in my mind what implications the emotion Heero had betrayed in his voice could possibly have.

For the first time, something hit me, with all the subtlety and impact of a freight train: did Heero possibly have feelings for me?

If you’d asked me that question before today, I would’ve probably put it in the same category as “Do unicorns exist?” You know, something only very little children or very stupid, naive people would believe. But somehow, that same Heero was sitting here clutching my arm like a lifeline and talking to me in this lost little voice.

I hadn’t even realized that Heero might be at headquarters, wondering what had happened when we hadn’t returned on time. I thought about what might have gone through his mind when he was waiting to find out if we were all right, or even alive. And then, when Matthews had returned and I hadn’t... and he had no idea where I was or what...

All at once, I remembered this mission from a year before, when Heero and I had been forced to escape a collapsing building (bad guys are always conveniently trying to blow up their hideouts with us still inside), and on the way out, Heero had been hit by this falling rafter that neither of us saw until it was too late. Heero had been knocked out cold for a good 30 seconds. I had just turned around, hearing the sound of him hitting the ground, and I just looked behind me and saw Heero splayed out on the floor.

For about 15 seconds, from the time I turned to when I finally reached him and checked for a pulse, I had no idea if he was alive or dead. Those fifteen seconds were the longest of my entire miserable life. Every single thing I had ever wanted to say to Heero that my own stupid cowardice had prevented me from blurting out ran through my mind, and all I could think of was what if he was dead and I never got the chance to tell him that he meant more to me than any other goddamn thing in the universe?

And now, was I watching while the same exact thing was playing out within Heero? He had sat there for hours at HQ, wearing the same clothes for two days, not willing to leave in case I made contact. In those hours when no one had known whether we were dead or alive or god knows what, was he haunted by things he’d never said to me? Was that why his hand was trembling, why he couldn’t let go of my arm, why he couldn’t look into my eyes?

I wanted to ask him straight out. I wanted to say something that would take that angry, miserable look out of his eyes. But I’m a real coward sometimes. Hell, “run and hide” is part of my motto. So what came out instead was:

“Heero, why do you always fix me up after missions?”

Well, that was stupid. Naturally, Heero didn’t say a thing. He stared at my arm for a really long time, neither of us speaking, just as awkward as anything. Right about when I’d decided he was just going to ignore me he finally spoke, his voice barely a whisper.

“...Because I need to.”

Aw, hell, now I was the one shaking. Look, folks, Heero ain’t no Shakespeare. He doesn’t exactly like to express himself much. But when he does, he says volumes with very little. And let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly going to get a sonnet out of him, here. It didn’t matter; I knew what he was trying to say.

I put a hand on his shoulder, the one attached to my uninjured arm. “Buddy?” I said. Heero didn’t say a thing, just shook his head. I didn’t know if he was going to cry or try to choke me or what, so I just decided “fuck it!” and took the plunge, cupping his face in my hands like I’d always wanted to. Damn, Heero’s cheeks were so soft, you’d never expect it.

“I’m okay. See? I’m here,” I said softly. Now that Heero was forced to look at me, I couldn’t look away from those deep blue eyes. Was I saying what they were asking to hear? “I’m all right. I’ll be around for you to fix me up again.” With that said, I leaned over gently, cautiously, and kissed Heero right on the lips.

Okay, I’m going to come clean about something. Just because I’d finally worked up the testicular fortitude to kiss Heero didn’t mean I still wasnt being a scared little bitch. Kissing Heero the way I wanted to meant sticking my tongue down his throat and really showing him I meant business, but even after everything, I still didn’t know if this was what Heero wanted. So, I was still giving myself a contingency plan. If Heero pulled away and looked at me like I’d just committed an unspeakable act, I’d try to play it off as a friendly kiss. I’d just have to hope that Heero was still socially retarded enough to not know that friends don’t kiss their platonic guy friends on the lips.

Strong hands balled in my shirt, and for a split second I thought Heero was going to lift me off the couch and hurl me into the nearest wall. Then, he was scrambling up from his position on the floor and practically tackling me into the cushions, kissing me furiously and hey, it wasn’t my tongue down somebody’s throat after all! I realized in about five seconds that Heero had never done this before, but he had all the enthusiasm of an eager pupil, and hell, I didn’t mind teaching him a few things.

Oh, Heero, baby, the things I was going to teach you.

My hands reached up, pulling him closer. I had him by the neck, the back of his head, his bushy hair surprisingly soft under my fingers. I guided his tongue around my mouth, teasing it with my own. If I tasted like cheap beer, Heero didn’t seem to mind at all. I sucked his lower lip into my mouth, allowed his tongue in again, its movements already more controlled, more confident. See, told you he was a fast learner.

Jesus, the effect this was having on me already. Never in a million years had I actually expected I’d be making out with Heero Yuy on our couch. Just the thought alone was making me feel dangerously out of control. No fucking way in hell I was going to fuck up this opportunity by losing it before I even had my clothes off! But damn if it wasn’t difficult to stay focused when Heero, the drop-dead sexy, insane love of my life, was attacking my mouth like he’d wanted to do this just as long as I had.

We were somewhere between lying down and leaning back on the couch, hands everywhere, Heero straddling my lap. He began to thrust instinctively against my crotch, grinding hard into my already painfully aroused erection. Guess he was having a good time, too. Thankfully for the sake of my self-esteem, he suddenly pulled back before I could embarrass myself by coming just from a little heavy petting. His eyes were wild, his mouth slightly open, panting. Be still, my beating hormones. Heero looked down at me from his vantage point in my lap, then his eyes guiltily fell to the bandages on my arm. Oh man, no way, we were not going to stop now just because I had a piddling couple hundred stitches decorating my bicep.

“Don’t worry, Heero,” I said, my voice sounding like a completely different person’s, hoarse and dizzy with lust as I was. “I’m fine. In fact,” I continued, running a hand roughly over the tenting crotch of his pants, “I’ve never felt better.”

Heero’s eyes unfocused a little as I rubbed his erection through his pants. Fuck, did he know how turned on I was? Well, he could definitely _see_ it; I was only wearing boxers, after all, they don’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. Heero was just kind of staring down at me with this deep gaze, and then he was up and off me, tugging my arm as he led us into my bedroom. Oh thank god I wasn’t getting an argument from him about this! Anyway, I think a little mattress surfing with Heero was just the kind of R &R my arm needed.

Heero turned around when we reached the foot of my bed, staring at me with this guilty expression in his eyes. I was pretty lost, but I did know what _I_ wanted at least. I wanted to fuck his brains out, pure and simple. I wanted him spread out beneath me, writhing as I plunged inside him.

And what do you know, I think that’s what Heero wanted too. He sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding my arm, then leaned back heavily and pulled me right on top of him. What a romantic, I tell you.

I didn’t waste any time. I pulled his jacket off, kissing him hungrily as I unbuttoned his dress shirt and tugged at his tie. I didn’t do a great job of loosening it, and Heero had to break away from me to do it himself. Whatever, I just went to work on his belt and slacks, jerking them impatiently down about halfway to his knees so Heero could kick them the rest of the way off. I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it in a random direction. Heero reached a hand up and ran it over my bare chest, fingers ghosting over the lines of my abs and tracing the circles of my nipples. Hey, baby, touch all you want, everything you see is yours anyway.

I kissed him again, sucking at his eager lips, as I gently tugged his boxers down, dragging my hands down his thighs as I eased them off. I pulled back a little, just to take him all in, miles and miles of that soft, dusky skin, little pink nipples rising and falling as he breathed beneath me. He looked so goddamn amazing. His erection was thick and heavy against his belly, nestled in a soft little bush of dark hair. I don’t think I’ll ever see a sexier sight in my entire life than the way Heero looked stretched out on my bed, watching me with those piercing blue eyes, that mouth wet from mine.

Taking care to keep my weight off my bad arm, I scrambled down so I was between his thighs, not even bothering to finish getting naked as I just swallowed his cock whole, the idea of foreplay long behind me. I wanted to have him wild for me when I entered him, because fuck it, I’ll be honest, I didn’t know how long I was going to be able to last when I did. I was just so overcome with it all, you know? Part of me still couldn’t believe that this was Heero Yuy whose cock was in my mouth. And who knew he could make noises like that?

He sucked in a breath like a moan, head writhing as I wasted no time to tease. I licked fully down the shaft of his erection, swirling my tongue around at the base as I sucked tightly, wetly, all friction against his sensitive skin. My fingers gripped his thighs as I took him fully in my mouth, pumping him up and down, stopping only when he began to thrust desperately against my mouth, aching for release. Not just yet, baby, I got plans for us. I pulled back, kissing his trembling skin as I made my way up his chest. Heero’s cock was a slick, sticky heat against my leg. I kissed him heavily on the mouth before throwing the drawer of my bedside table open and rummaging around for a few painfully long seconds. Finally, my fingers closed around the slim little tube and flat plastic package I had saved in there. For a rainy day, you know.

I had my fingers lubed up in record time and I didn’t want to wait anymore. Heero knew what was up; virgin or not, you don’t need an instruction manual to figure out what goes where in these situations. Heero spread his legs obligingly, his hands strong and firm on my thighs. God damn, the trust in those eyes just floored me.

 _Don’t worry, Heero, you’ll never forget this,_ I promised him in my head. _I’ll make sure of it._

I slipped my hand down into the curve of his buttocks, pushing them apart slightly so I could work one slick finger inside. Heero was close to coming, his whole body taut like a wire. He kissed me desperately as I prepared him as quickly as possible, wasting no time to slip in a second finger and plunge both of them deep inside. Heero offered no resistance, just steadily gripped my thighs. I pulled my fingers out to finally tug my boxers all the way off and roll the condom over my erection, hard enough to pound nails and I just couldn’t get back on the bed fast enough.

“Okay, here goes,” I whispered, I don’t know why, and then I was pushing inside Heero, slowly for both of our sakes. Heero was all tightness and heat and friction, and I had to make sure I didn’t lose it before I made it good for him, too. He felt so fucking amazing, I kind of wanted to tell him, tell somebody, but the words just caught in my throat and I moaned instead. The situation was just beyond me. Heero– my buddy, my right-hand man, the most important guy in the whole goddamn world and the colonies to me– Heero was beneath me and around me and accepting me and I just couldn’t believe that this was really happening. I don’t usually have dreams come true, you know. I thought I knew him so well, but I guess I still had a lot of learning to do, because if you had asked me yesterday if I’d thought Heero wanted to sleep with me I would’ve probably laughed in your face. And yet, here we were, and I was all the way inside him, and Heero was panting softly at the head of the bed and holy shit, this was just the most amazing feeling, nothing would ever beat this, it was like every fucking lift-off and zero-g turn I ever did in Deathscythe, all rolled into one.

“Heero!” I moaned. I couldn’t help it, I was having a semi-religious moment. Slowly, Heero’s eyes opened, deep, endless blue, staring at me. One hand ran softly, gently down my bandaged arm. And then he smiled, this tiny, corners-of-his-mouth smile, but it was a real one and for Heero it was as much as if he’d flashed all his pearly whites at me.

I was just blown away, I’ll tell you. I’d never loved him so much.

Slowly, I began to pull out, working him open as gently as I could. It couldn’t have felt very good; it was his first time, after all. But he was still hard and he was smiling, that was a good sign, right? I worked my way slowly in and out a couple of times, my head swirling a little, but I forced myself not to lose it until Heero was ready. After a few minutes, his hips gave this shallow little jerk, not of pain, but of impatience. That hand on my thigh tightened its grip, pulling me in closer. Roger, mission control!

I began to really thrust in earnest, just relishing that incredible friction and heat. I had one of Heero’s legs up over my right shoulder, but with my left arm numb the way it was, throwing his other leg over me wouldn’t have done any good. Well, that left Heero to wrap it around my waist, bringing us closer. Mm, yes please.

Oh fuck, did he have any idea how sexy he was? Guess it was up to me to show him.

I just pounded the shit out of him, thrusting wildly, deeply, absently hoping I didn’t ram his head into the headboard or anything. Heero was panting hoarsely, gripping me fiercely, and then he was arching off the bed, groaning as my cock brushed his g-spot. That’s what I’d like to call a 3-point shot, folks.

I felt my control slipping much sooner than I’d wanted, but fuck, I’d held out for so long already. I curled my hand around Heero’s dripping cock, pumping it roughly as I concentrated on hitting that spot again. I could feel Heero’s thighs shaking against me, his head tossing wildly against my pillow, and then he was rearing up off the bed again, crying out as he came, the strong muscles of his stomach trembling as his release shot out hot and sticky against both of us. Slam dunk.

I managed another one or two deep thrusts as Heero came, then I was shuddering, screaming his name and emptying myself inside him. Exhausted, spent, overwhelmed, I just collapsed on top of him, my hand still holding his cock, dead to the world and all sensation except the incredible heat of his skin against mine. I think I was talking, mumbling shit even I didn’t understand into his ear. Please, you should already know that no matter how physically or emotionally spent I am I’ll still have the energy to talk. I think I could be braindead or in a coma and I’d still be running my mouth. I’m sure I told him I loved him or something else really embarrassing. Heero brought his hands up to rest gently on my back, and when he spoke, his voice was his normal, low tone, as if he wasn’t supporting one hundred and eighty pounds of exhausted Duo Maxwell with his ribcage. Didn’t even faze the guy.

“How is your arm?”

I laughed a little, shoving myself off him weakly with my good arm to sprawl beside him on the wrinkled bedsheets. “It’s fine, buddy.” I laid a hand on my chest and immediately realized I was still covered in sticky, body-warm stuff. Lovely. I also still had a condom on. Grumbling and grabbing a couple of tissues from the bedside table, I cleaned us up a little, a little cautious to touch Heero even after all the shit that we’d just did. Heero wasn’t saying anything, just kind of watched me do my thing, but he wasn’t resisting, so he wasn’t mad or regretting it or anything. And it’s not really like I’d expect him to start chatting me up just because I’d been inside him, but hey, I didn’t know Heero’s post-coital manners, I was in a totally new zone with this guy. Uncharted territory, folks.

It hit me just then as I chucked the mess in my hand in the trash and lay back down beside Heero’s sprawled-out form. I was his first. First kiss, first everything, and all on the same day, too. Even I waited a little while between achieving those milestones. Heero’s hand ghosted up along my arm, the bad one that I had conveniently draped across his naked chest. A little overwhelmed by the stuff going through my head, I decided to make some conversation.

“Say, Heero, aren’t you going to be in trouble for skipping out on work? Noin’s going to have both our asses on Monday.” It was Friday, why _was_ Heero home, anyway?

Okay, I get the whole part about Heero being worried about me and rushing home to see if I was there, but he was acting a little too relaxed about it. We’re talking about the guy who doesn’t call in sick while he’s in the hospital. It wouldn’t matter if he had the flu or gangrene or open-heart surgery, he’d still show up to the office with the IV still in his arm.

Heero turned his head toward me and gave me this look like he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me something. “Actually, Noin told me to get out of headquarters or she’d suspend me without pay.”

I propped myself up on my arm and stared at him. “Noin said that? How come?”

“I punched Matthews in the face.”

Heero said this in the same tone of voice you’d use to say “I took out the trash today.” That’s the man I love, folks.

I laughed, but winced a little at the same time. Heero’s got a hard punch. Believe me, I know. My ribs hurt for a week after he socked me in the stomach during the Mariemeia Incident. Poor Matthews. Noin’s little comment about me “treating inexperienced agents with a great deal less hostility” than Yuy does popped into my head and I just started to crack up. No shit, Noin. And if it was anyone else, they would’ve been fired in a split second.

“What was that for?” I finally asked when my laughter died down.

“For letting you leave while injured,” Heero said matter-of-factly.

Well, then. I ain’t much of a damsel in distress, but I do like a little consideration every once in a while. So even though Yuy punching a guy out because of me shouldn’t have made me feel as happy as it did, I couldn’t really help it and I just kind of sprawled out over him in a sloppy, sticky hug.

“Sorry, babe,” I mumbled against his mouth. I figured I could get away with a couple of pet names while we were still naked and cuddly. “I didn’t mean to make you worry about me.” Although, if these were the results it produced, I wouldn’t mind making him worry a little more often.

Heero’s soft mouth pressed gently back against my own. Who knew the guy could be so... tender? He looked up at me with those captivating blue eyes and said:

“If it happens again it’ll be _your_ face.”

Okay, forget tender. He was still Heero through-and-through, though apparently he liked to turn into a little jokester when he was well fucked. Duly noted.

However, now was one of those times when I just didn’t want to hear Heero’s sparkling sense of humor. “Shut up, Yuy,” I murmured, and made him do so in the best way possible.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, where I wasn’t concentrating on making out with the sexist man alive, I reminded myself to apologize to Matthews when I saw him on Monday. The poor guy probably didn’t even see it coming, but I should have. After all, Heero is my partner, my best buddy, my number one-all-the-way-to-infinity. And he’ll always be there to fix me up.

 

The End


End file.
